Opinion
No. 1D19-2821
04-29-2021
Pamela Joyce Jones STOKES and Rigsby Thomas Jones, individually and as co-trustees of the Dorothy C. Jones Amended and Restated Living Trust Agreement Dated August 16, 2010, Petitioners, v. Frederick Donald JONES, Annette Loraine Hodges, Clint James Jones, Denise Jones, Robyn D. Stokes Griffin, Stewart Stokes, Jamie Lynn Naff, Quinn N. Jones, Shay Jones, Chase A. Jones, Christopher M. Jones and Bradley T. Jones, Respondents.
Laura Beth Faragasso of Henry Buchanan, P.A., Tallahassee, for Petitioners. Jerry L. Rumph, Jr. and Jennifer L. Sweeting of Sweeting & Rumph, P.A., Tallahassee, for Respondents.
Laura Beth Faragasso of Henry Buchanan, P.A., Tallahassee, for Petitioners.
Jerry L. Rumph, Jr. and Jennifer L. Sweeting of Sweeting & Rumph, P.A., Tallahassee, for Respondents.
Salvador, Tatiana R., Associate Judge.
The Petitioners seek a writ of prohibition to stop the trial court from exercising jurisdiction over a final trust accounting and attendant discovery requests. The accounting claim was filed in the case file of an earlier action construing and terminating a trust. Because the order in that earlier action became final before the accounting claim was filed, we agree with Petitioners that the trial court did not have jurisdiction over the case and therefore, we grant in part and deny in part the petition.
I.
On April 10, 2018, Petitioners filed a petition to construe and terminate a trust. The trust agreement, created by Dorothy Jones, named her children and grandchildren as beneficiaries. However, a grandchild beneficiary had been inadvertently omitted, and the named beneficiaries’ interests in the trust totaled only 96% of the trust's assets. Petitioners sought to construe the trust to include the missing beneficiary and account for 100% of the trust's assets, and thereafter to terminate the trust and direct the trustees to distribute all trust assets to the beneficiaries in accordance with the trust agreement and section 736.04113, Florida Statutes.
After a hearing, the trial court entered an order construing and terminating the trust as requested by Petitioners. The trial court's order of August 21, 2018, provided that: "[a]fter distribution of the assets of the Trust as set forth above and a submission of the final accounting of the Trust to the beneficiaries, the Petitioners shall be discharged as trustees of the Trust and shall have no further obligations as trustees of the Trust." In a handwritten portion, the order further provided that "[a]ny objections to the final accounting will be waived if not submitted within 6 months." No party appealed the court's order or filed a timely motion for rehearing.
On December 21, 2018, Petitioners provided a final trust accounting to all beneficiaries, including Respondents. On February 18, 2019, Respondents filed their objections to the final accounting in the same case, and, by separate pleading filed in the same case, also sought the production of certain documents relating to the trust's assets and its administration. Petitioners responded with a motion for protective order and a motion to strike the objections. Petitioners alleged, among other things, that Respondents sought improper "post-judgment discovery," as there was no longer a "pending action" in which the trial court could order discovery.
The trial court subsequently held a case management conference. In an order following the case management conference, the court granted Petitioners’ motion for protective order, finding that the court's August 21, 2018, order construing and terminating the trust was a final, appealable order that did not include a reservation of jurisdiction. Accordingly, the court found that there was no pending case in which to order discovery and that Respondents’ attempt to initiate discovery in a closed case was "inappropriate." The court noted that the handwritten portion of the August 21, 2018, order simply recognized "the separate right of the beneficiaries to object to the final accounting" once they received it.
Respondents subsequently filed a motion for rehearing of the case management order. Before that motion was heard, the original judge retired. A successor judge was assigned to the case and granted the motion for rehearing in part. The court ruled that it would hear the objections to the final accounting filed in the case.
A hearing was subsequently held, after which the court ordered Petitioners to comply with Respondents’ discovery requests. The court also indicated that after Petitioners’ compliance with the discovery requests, it would set an additional hearing to rule on Respondents’ objections to the final accounting and any further discovery requests. Petitioners subsequently filed the instant petition for writ of prohibition.
II.
"Prohibition is an extraordinary writ ... by which a superior court ... may prevent [an] inferior court or tribunal from exceeding jurisdiction or usurping jurisdiction over matters not within its jurisdiction." English v. McCrary , 348 So. 2d 293, 296 (Fla. 1977). The Florida Supreme Court has explained:
Prohibition may only be granted when it is shown that a lower court is without jurisdiction or attempting to act in excess of jurisdiction. It is preventive and not corrective in that it commands the one to whom it is directed not to do the thing which the supervisory court is informed the lower tribunal is about to do. Its purpose is to prevent the doing of something, not to compel the undoing of something already done.
Roberts v. Brown , 43 So. 3d 673, 677–78 (Fla. 2010) (quoting English , 348 So. 2d at 296–97 ).
Thus, prohibition is a remedy that "is very narrow in scope and operation and must be employed with caution ...." Mandico v. Taos Constr., Inc ., 605 So. 2d 850, 854 (Fla. 1992). However, prohibition may be an appropriate remedy where a court no longer has jurisdiction to proceed on the matter. Scott v. Francati , 214 So. 3d 742, 749 (Fla. 1st DCA 2017) ("[A] writ of prohibition may be granted when a trial court acts outside of its jurisdiction" and "is appropriate when a circuit court attempts to proceed in a case when it has lost jurisdiction." (first citing State, Dep't of Highway Safety & Motor Vehicles v. Lopez , 188 So. 3d 95 (Fla. 3d DCA 2016) then citing Travelers Cas. & Sur. Co. of Am. v. Culbreath Isles Prop. Owners Ass'n , 103 So. 3d 896 (Fla. 2d DCA 2012) )); see also Fla. Dep't of Health v. Tropiflora, LLC , 265 So. 3d 673, 675 (Fla. 1st DCA 2019).
While prohibition is often used in cases where a court does not have subject matter jurisdiction, it is also used where the lower court had subject matter jurisdiction but no longer has jurisdiction over the case—sometimes referred to as "case jurisdiction." See Baden v. Baden , 260 So. 3d 1108 (Fla. 2d DCA 2018) (granting prohibition where the trial court continued to exercise jurisdiction over a trust case where the plaintiff had voluntarily dismissed the action); Tobkin v. State , 777 So. 2d 1160, 1163 (Fla. 4th DCA 2001) (granting prohibition where the complaint in a domestic violence action had been voluntarily dismissed, thereby divesting the court of "case jurisdiction" to proceed on the matter); see also Allen v. Helms , 293 So. 3d 572, 577 (Fla. 1st DCA 2020) (citing Tobkin approvingly and explaining case jurisdiction versus subject matter jurisdiction).
There is no dispute that the circuit court had exclusive original subject matter jurisdiction to hear trust matters. See § 26.012(2)(b), Fla. Stat.; § 736.0203, Fla. Stat. The primary issue is whether the trial court had continuing jurisdiction to hear and rule on the objections to the final trust accounting, and any attendant discovery requests. Under the trust code, the general method for challenging the final accounting is to file a separate action. "Except as provided in subsections (5) and (6) and s. 736.0206, judicial proceedings concerning trusts shall be commenced by filing a complaint and shall be governed by the Florida Rules of Civil Procedure." § 736.0201(1), Fla. Stat. (emphasis added). This is further confirmed by section 736.1008(2), Florida Statutes, which provides:
Unless sooner barred by adjudication, consent, or limitations, a beneficiary is barred from bringing an action against a trustee for breach of trust with respect to a matter that was adequately disclosed in a trust disclosure document unless a proceeding to assert the claim is commenced within 6 months after receipt from the trustee of the trust disclosure document or a limitation notice that applies to that disclosure document, whichever is received later.
(emphasis added). Additionally instructive in this matter is section 736.0201(3), Florida Statutes, which provides that "[a] trust is not subject to continuing judicial supervision unless ordered by the court ." (emphasis added).
Rather than file a complaint in a separate action challenging the final trust accounting, Respondents point to the court's handwritten addition to its August 21, 2018, order, which states that "[a]ny objection to the final accounting will be waived if not submitted within 6 months." They cite this language as evidence of the court's intent to reserve continuing jurisdiction in the case to rule on their accounting claim. However, we read this provision as expressly written, i.e., as a restatement or reminder of the law which provides parties with a six-month time period for filing a challenge described in section 736.1008(2), Florida Statutes, and not as a specific reservation of continuing jurisdiction in this case. Indeed, this case was initiated by Petitioners to construe and terminate the trust, which was accomplished with entry of the court's order. A beneficiary's objection to a trustee's final accounting is appropriately brought as a separate cause of action for breach of fiduciary duty. See Corya v. Sanders , 155 So. 3d 1279, 1285 (Fla. 4th DCA 2015) ("Failure to prepare an accounting is a breach of trust by a trustee. The failure is also referred to as a breach of fiduciary duty." (citations omitted)); Beaubien v. Cambridge Consol., Ltd. , 652 So. 2d 936, 939 n.5 (Fla. 5th DCA 1995) (citing In re Wickman's Will , 289 So. 2d 788 (Fla. 2d DCA 1974), for the proposition that "beneficiaries [are] entitled to bring trustees to account for breach of fiduciary responsibility if trustees failed to file accounting, improperly value assets or fail to account for all the assets in the corpus of the trust").
Furthermore, while not solely determinative of the outcome herein, the original judge's explanation of her own order confirms our reading of the same. The court's subsequent order entered after the case management conference provided:
In its order construing and terminating the underlying trust, the Court terminated the trust while recognizing the separate right of the beneficiaries to object to the final accounting when they received [it]. The order terminating the trust did not contain any reservation of jurisdiction and became final when 30 days passed from the August 22, 2018, rendition of the order.... Once that order was entered, there was no pending action which required discovery, especially after the passage of the 30 day appellate time, where the Court did not retain jurisdiction.
Thus, given the express language of the order construing and terminating the trust, the judge's subsequent explanation of her own order, and the broader statutory framework, we conclude that the court did not retain jurisdiction, and the order construing and terminating the trust became final when not appealed within 30 days. Under section 736.0201(3) there was no continuing jurisdiction over the trust.
"It is well settled that the trial court loses jurisdiction over a case after it becomes final, with the exception that the trial court has jurisdiction to entertain a timely filed motion under Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.540." Rodriguez v. Temperature Concepts, Inc. , 267 So. 3d 36, 38 (Fla. 4th DCA 2019) (citing Magloire v. Bank of N.Y. , 147 So. 3d 594, 596 (Fla. 4th DCA 2014) ); see also Gardner v. Nioso , 108 So. 3d 1122 (Fla. 1st DCA 2013) (finding that court lacked jurisdiction after dismissal of the case). Outside of a motion under rule 1.540, the trial court also has jurisdiction to entertain a timely motion for rehearing under rule 1.530. A motion for new trial or rehearing must be served no later than fifteen days after the return of the verdict or the filing of a judgment. Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.530(b). Here, Respondents did not file a motion under rule 1.540 or a timely motion under rule 1.530 for rehearing of the trial court's final order of August 21, 2018. Accordingly, the successor judge lacked case jurisdiction to hear the challenge to the trust accounting and to rule on discovery disputes.
Respondents further assert that, even if the trial court lacked jurisdiction, the court has already acted and prohibition may not be used as a corrective remedy. Respondents are correct that prohibition's "purpose is to prevent the doing of something, not to compel the undoing of something already done. It cannot be used to revoke an order already entered." Hamlin v. E. Coast Props., Inc. , 616 So. 2d 1175, 1176 (Fla. 1st DCA 1993) (citing State ex rel. Harris v. McCauley , 297 So. 2d 825 (Fla. 1974) ); see also Sparkman v. McClure , 498 So. 2d 892, 895 (Fla. 1986) ("Prohibition is preventative, not corrective."). "[P]rohibition will not lie to undo that which has already been conclusively accomplished ...." Hamlin , 616 So. 2d at 1176–77. Prohibition is unavailable to prevent the trial court from ordering Petitioners to comply with Respondents’ request for production because the court has already done so. See id. Therefore, to the extent Petitioners seek to undo the court's order compelling compliance with Respondents’ discovery requests, the petition is denied.
However, in this case, no evidentiary hearing has been held nor ruling made on Respondents’ objections to the final accounting. In addition, the successor judge reserved jurisdiction to rule on any further discovery requests. Accordingly, this is not a case where Petitioners are trying, by prohibition, to undo conclusively accomplished actions by the trial court. Rather, the trial court contemplates ongoing actions, which Petitioners assert the court does not have jurisdiction to take. Therefore, we do not find the use of prohibition in those circumstances to be precluded here.
Because the trial court is acting in excess of its jurisdiction over the case, we GRANT in part and DENY in part the petition for writ of prohibition as detailed herein.
Kelsey and Nordby, JJ., concur.